Saturday, November 21, 2009

Piece on Earth

Okay, stupid title, but it's early, and I've much to do today...friends are coming for dinner...Ribs, garlic smashed potatoes, almond and apricot salad, and Key Lime Pie! I did finish my window treatments for the living room, but the light is terrible today, and I really don't have time to photograph them, but I will tomorrow... meantime, I realized that I like to "piece" window treatments...a trick I picked up while doing Parade Homes, where one had no budget, no time, and I found myself sewing them at three am. Thank God for painters, who could see well enough to thread my machine needle for me. (Now, I have a sewing machine that has a "self threader", or I'd be in real trouble). I have a giant box of bits and pieces of fabric...some larger than others, some quilted, some very expensive, some not so much, and by piecing them together, I could come up with unsual, but interesting window treatments.

I intentionally didn't line my dining room window treatments, as the western sun shines in in the afternoons, and creates a "stained glass" effect. I am aware that, in time, the sun destroys the fabric, but I didn't pay much for it (even though it is pieced together in silks), and being the Gemini that I am, I will probably be tired of them and make new ones by then. Mondrian was my inspiration.

This dining room was a Parade Home, and privacy wasn't an issue (I later did some for the people who bought the house, so they weren't feeling as if they were dining in a fish bowl). The "valances" are silk, which I trimmed in crystal beads, and just hung sheers. The sheers are now in my bedroom, hanging on my French doors, which open out onto our porch...we are on a few acres, and I have a large Ficus tree in front of them (in which our Cardinals nest), so I don't worry about privacy. The valances are in the guest room, where we have very tall windows...I hung them on tension rods, and then, hung aubergine, velvet curtains for privacy. The sun shines in in the morning, and the crystals create dancing light on the walls and ceiling...I made these curtains for a client, who's sunroom not only needed protection from, well, the sun, and for privacy. Top-down, bottem-up blinds were the answer. I did alot of photostyling for Graber/Springs Window Fashions, and they loved "on location" shoots, so the client got the shades for free, I got paid for styling the shoot, and Graber got their shots...everyone was happy.

This is one of my Texas clients, who wanted to feel "swathed and pampered", so I did the window treatments and pillows...she did the valances...That's a Candice Olsen headboard...I love her show, "Devine Design"..

And so, as the sun sets in the West, I will leave you, and go make my "keylime pie". My mother-in-law gave me the receipe, and it's so easy that I'm almost ashamed to share it...but, if anyone wants it, I will....

About Me

Some may notice I've recently changed this profile,simply because life changes...I've become a Texan through- and -through...living just outside of the wonderful city of Austin...Since moving here five years ago, I've become who I was before I left the South (having lived in Boston, Wisconsin, et al), where things are not as relaxed. I love it here.
I have always been involved in the arts..Interior Design, Photography, Photo Styling, Artist, Floral Designer, Gardener, writer...That's the ETC. in my business, and in my life...also, being a Gemini, I can happily move back-and-forth; for me, change is good...death is doing the same thing day in and day out....welcome to my world...